Confronting the Monster Under the Bed

 Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is a wonderful book to read, or just to look at. In my opinion, this book definitely deserves its Caldecott award for its combination of surrealism and cartoon artwork. This book also seems to pull from Maurice's own childhood and how he confronted the monsters in his own life. When Maurice was a child he found out that he had lost many family members in the Holocaust. At that point in his life, he had never thought of the horrors of reality, and he became a sickly child with many fears. As he grew older he was able to confront the horrors of life by acknowledging the beauty. The illustrations in this book are shown in a similar way combining both terrifying and beautiful aspects to make a visually interesting composition. 

Maurices' stylistic choices help the reader know it's written distinctly from a child's point of view. The organic shapes, the active texture, and the energetic linework show fun movement that make the illustrations intriguing for students to look at. The illustrations are sophisticated, but with line work that makes the pictures seem playful although they depict somewhat scary scenes. The use of color from Maurice is also very thoughtful. His use of earthy tones at the forefront with cool colors in the background seems to make the characters jump off of the page. His color choice also represents the dream-like state the character is in. 

These incredible scenes seem to be an allegory for Maurice's childhood showing a child approaching scary monsters and confronting them. Then realizing he doesn't want to be anything like those monsters. Maurice with this book and illustrations helps children confront their own monsters, and hopefully helps them realize they're not so scary after all.